The present invention is directed to slot air diffusers or airbars that control and distribute air from a heating and cooling ventilation system into a room and, in particular, to improvements in bridges that support air control blades within such diffusers.
Air diffusers are utilized to distribute air into a room from a plenum in such a manner as to control the direction of the air into the room and/or the volume of flow of air from each diffuser. Such diffusers may be mounted in a ceiling, walls or other structures as required by the particular architectural need and the present invention is designed for any such uses.
Many types of diffuser have existed in the prior art such as is shown in the Hungerford U.S. Pat. No. 5,001,967. Such diffusers often include a body or frame with side rails connected by bridges that in turn support air control blades.
Prior art bridges have been restrictive as to the positioning of the air control blades supported by the bridges. Furthermore, the bridges of the prior art are normally designed such that the entire diffuser must be disassembled when it is necessary to replace a control blade or it becomes desirable to be able to exchange one type of control blade for a different style blade. It is desirable to make such changes without disassembly of the diffuser or of room structure around the diffuser. Also, it is normally important to limit noise produced by air diffusers. Prior air diffusers have bridges that create very turbulent air flow about the bridges and are therefore quite noisy. The air control blades also often vibrate or rattle in the air flow making additional noise.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a diffuser and especially a bridge for such a diffuser that overcomes these problems.